


When we’re rich

by yrmmbggy



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Character Death (mention), Childhood Friends, Cigarettes, Drug Use, Fluff, M/M, Weed, child abuse (mention), implied csa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 16:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18574957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrmmbggy/pseuds/yrmmbggy
Summary: “When we’re rich, dude-““You keep saying that, Charlie, but I’m seriously starting to doubt that shit will happen.”~Mac and Charlie throughout the years, and their future plans along the way.





	When we’re rich

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this fic in my drafts since last July and I lost all motivation with it. Then today, I read it and realised it wasn’t as shite as I thought, so I edited it a bit and decided to post it.  
> Please ignore any grammatical errors, I’m very tired.
> 
> I hope you like it, comments/kudos/all that malarkey is greatly appreciated

They’re seven and innocent, with dirt under their fingernails and missing teeth, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on Charlie’s bedroom floor, scribbling pictures with broken crayons. Well, Charlie was scribbling. Mac was trying to cut off the sleeves of his shirt using Charlie’s safety scissors. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mac gives up and throws the scissors across the room. Charlie watches them bounce against his dresser before continuing his drawing, his tongue poking out slightly from the corner of his lips.

“When we’re rich,” Charlie said, “we can move somewhere exotic.”  
“Yeah, like Spain.” Mac agreed, laying back in the patch of sunlight creeping through the moth-eaten curtains.  
Mac vaguely remembers going to Spain with his parents when he was four (maybe five) back when his dad was around more and gave his son hugs and his wife kisses. He can remember wading into the ocean, feeling the ridges of the sand under his bare feet and picturing a giant dinosaur skeleton buried deep under the unsuspecting holiday makers.

“Yeah, Spain. Or like, Jersey or something.”  
“Jersey isn’t exotic, dude.”  
“Sure it is,” Charlie nodded, not taking his eyes off of his picture, “it’s outside of Philly, isn’t it?”  
“I guess.” Mac shrugged.

Charlie lifted his head and looked at his best friend, who hadn’t put his shirt back on yet. His eyes lingered on the small, circular scars that littered Mac’s shoulders. When Charlie had asked what they were, Mac simply replied “cig scars, because I’m badass.”  
Charlie didn’t think that was particularly badass, he just thought it was sad.

“How we gonna get rich, anyway Charlie?” Mac asked, tearing Charlie’s eyes from the scars and back at Mac’s face.  
“That’s the best part dude. We can do whatever we want! You can do your karate and I can do my art or something!”

Charlie loved drawing. His room was covered in pictures of superheroes and his mom and Mac and a boat and Mac and Mac again, all half stuck up with strips of sticky tape and chewed up gum. Some of his more secret ones were stuffed in a shoebox at the back of his closet; pieces of paper that held yellow cat eyes and dark hands and a crying boy.

“You can’t get rich off of art, dude. Only if you’re, like, really good.” Mac said, finally pulling his shirt back over his head.  
“Whatever, you don’t even have to be talented to be rich anymore.” Charlie grumbled, going back to his picture to add the finishing touches.

Mac crawled over to Charlie.  
“Whatcha drawing anyway dude?”  
Charlie held up his paper. On it were two wonky stick figures, one with brown blobs on its face and one with green, both complete with a shaky smile. They stood on a scribble of yellow next to a scribble of dark blue; a large scribble of light blue was above them. Behind the figures was a long white rectangle with various blue squares. The picture was labelled ‘CAT + MACS HOWS’

“That’s really good dude,” Mac smiled, taking the picture from Charlie’s hand and walking over to the wall next to Charlie’s bed. He took a bit of juicy fruit gum out of his mouth and stuck the picture right next to his collection of superman and kitten stickers (he would later realise, at age ten, that those stickers are a bitch to get off and the paint underneath will chip away)  
“Maybe you can get rich off of your art after all.”

•••

They’re thirteen and rebellious, with bloodied knuckles and sunkissed skin, laying on lilos in a pool after hours, staring up at the dark night sky.  
Mac- as much as he’d like to say he was big and muscular- was nimble and agile, so he clawed his way up the fence like a cat. Charlie, however, was a little more clumsy, so Mac opened the gate for him on the other side.  
They broke the lock to the pool shed pretty easily; years of Philly rain had rusted it until it couldn’t even lock properly. They stole two lilos and stripped down to their underwear before jumping into the pool. A typical July evening.

“When we’re rich bro,” Charlie said, now on top of his floatie and dipping his hand lazily into the water, “we can have our own pool that’s, like, a billion times bigger than this one. We won’t need to jump fences or break locks, it’ll just be me and you, drinking cocktails on state of the art lilos.”  
“Do they even exist dude?” Mac asked. He was treading water, taking a break from doing lengths.  
“I dunno, but they’ll probably exist by the time we’re rich.”  
“Can’t argue with that logic.” Mac said, before diving under the water.

Charlie stared up at the sky, trying to count how many stars he could see: one, two, three (wait scratch that, that one’s a satellite).  
He got to about twenty six and got bored, so instead he closed his eyes and developed this future he had planned out for him and Mac. Charlie knew that Mac still wanted to be a karate sensai, despite never taking a lesson in his life, and Charlie had started playing the piano he got last Christmas, so maybe he’d be a musician. They’d live on the beach somewhere, growing old together (he didn’t need a girl, he just needed Mac). Hopefully, Charlie prayed, hopefully he’ll get over this dumb aversion to leaving Philadelphia (little did he know that Bonnie would hammer it into him over the years that _‘you’re only safe in Philadelphia, Charlie. Bad things happen outside of the city.’_ )

Charlie’s eyes jolted open when he felt his lilo shift; peering over the edge, he saw a mop of dark hair floating amongst the turquoise. Mac resurfaced and clung onto the edge of the floatie, beaming from ear to ear. He laced his fingers with Charlie’s before-  
“You fucker!” Charlie yelled as he rose up from the water.  
“Shut up!” Mac whispered through laughs, “do you want us to get caught?”  
Charlie flipped him off but was grinning, unable to stay mad at his best friend for long.  
“You pulled me under, you little shit!”

They continued to laugh and dunk each other’s heads under, until a flashlight could be seen in the distance and they had to run half naked through the streets.

A typical July evening.

•••

They’re seventeen and bored, with a freezer full of cider and popsicles and sweat glistened skin under tank tops, in Dennis Reynolds’ backyard, throwing stones at his dad’s convertible. Dennis was inside, trying to find some hard liquor and shooing away his twin sister who wanted to join them, and Mac and Charlie were passing a cigarette between the two of them.

“When we’re rich bud,” Charlie said, passing the cig over to Mac, “we can buy a huge ass house. Even bigger than Dennis’. Like, a solid gold mansion or some shit.”

Charlie looked over at his best friend, and felt a swell of something warm in the pit of his stomach. The way that Mac’s dark eyes seemed to go on for decades and held so much emotion, even when his face showed none.

Dennis wasn’t completely awful, Charlie supposed, since he taught him how to conceal zits and use colour corrector to hide bruises (which came in handy).

But Mac worshipped him like a god, and took every word he said as something sacred. Dennis was Mac’s bible.

Mac smiled at his friend’s childishness, grateful that the world hadn’t jaded him yet.  
“Yeah, bro. You, me and Dennis can live it up. Like kings.”   
He leaned back in his chair and took a drag of the cigarette, missing the way that Charlie’s shoulders sank at the mention of the Reynolds boy.

“Yeah,” he said halfheartedly, “like kings.”

•••

They’re twenty and drunk, with unpacked boxes of shitty furniture and an old cassette player blasting out the only tape they could find on the only track that won’t skip in the attic of some Polish guy’s house that they were able to rent out together.

“When we’re rich Mac,” Charlie said, his speech slowed by the cheap beer and cheap pot, “we can buy as much beer and weed as we want. Y’know, the fancy shit that celebrities use on their yatchs. And we won’t have to live in some dusty old attic,” Charlie, swung his arm around, gesturing to his surroundings. Beer sloshed onto the floorboards. “We can buy a big ass mansion, in Spain, with a pool and a yatch!”

Mac grinned at his friend, rolling out one of the two sleeping bags.  
“Of course dude. And we’ll have chicks ‘round every night. Except for Wednesday’s obviously.” Mac added as an afterthought, “that’s our night, Charlie. Where we can do whatever we want and it won’t matter because we’re rich.”

Mac stood up, frowning as a floorboard creaked.  
“Fucking shithole.”

The attic was dirty and smelled a little like mold, plus a couple of the bulbs were out so it was in a constant state of a half-light amber wash.  
But it was a place of their own.

Dennis and Dee had gone off to college last year, leaving Mac and Charlie alone once again. They had both gotten jobs stacking shelves at supermarkets and Mac had even landed a job at a movie theatre whilst Charlie got paid to clean gutters and kill rats for his  
neighbours.  
After months of house searching, they had managed to find a place not far from the outskirts of Philly.

Neither of them spoke Polish, but the guy spoke enough English to let them know what they had to pay and when they had to pay it, which was good enough for them. (“You barely speak English yourself, Charlie” “Fuck off”)

They could rent out the attic for as long as they needed, and could roam anywhere in the house except for the third door on the left, second floor. When Charlie has asked what was in there, he was met with a noncommittal grunt.  
(They had tried to sneak in one day but with no prevail; The guy seemed to take the key everywhere with him).

“Is this shitty song starting to get on your nerves too?” Mac asked through gritted teeth as he cracked open his (fourth? Fifth?) beer.  
“Nah dude!” Charlie slurred happily, swaying in place, “this song is the shit!”

His eyes were shut, a look of pure bliss on his face. He didn’t have to think about his mom’s episodes, or special visits from jack at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. (He didn’t have to think about how, in a couple years time, Mac would move in with Dennis, or that Mac would soon forget about all of his plans with Charlie.)

Mac grabbed Charlie by the waist and began swaying in time with the music.  
“Now put your arms around my neck.” He instructed.  
Normally, if Mac was sober, he wouldn’t dare do anything so, well, _gay_. But he was high and tired and just fucking _happy_.

“Mm this is nice.” Charlie muttered, voice slightly muffled by Mac’s shoulder.  
“It is, isn’t it.”  
(Charlie also didn’t have to think about how, later, messy kisses and drunk ‘I love you’s whispered in the dark would mean nothing.)

They rocked back and fourth, letting their minds drift and bodies move to the music.

_Take my breath away..._

_•••_

They’re forty-five and worn out, with silver hairs and crinkles around their eyes, sitting at the bar of Paddy’s Irish pub, nursing bottles of warm beer and picking at the chipped wood of the bar.  
“When we’re rich, dude-“  
“You keep saying that, Charlie, but I’m seriously starting to doubt that shit will happen.”

Frank had been dead a year and Dennis and Dee had moved on with their lives. Dee had finally landed a small role in a tv pilot and had moved to LA and Dennis went back to North Carolina.  
“There’s nothing here for me anymore.” He had said before he left. Mac pretended that didn’t sting.

So it had been Mac and Charlie alone again, like how it started out, like how it was always meant to be.

Cat and Mac against the world.

The bar had less customers than ever. Mac was getting bored of rejecting guys in bars because they weren’t Dennis. Charlie was starting to think there was more to life than bashing rats.

“You never know man, we could get our big break...”  
“Or we could live out the rest of our lives in this shitty bar, getting bitter and sad and nowhere in life.”   
Mac took a swig from his beer, suddenly hating the way it tasted in his mouth.

Charlie was silent for a moment, until an idea flashed in his mind. It was nothing yet, just an ember.

But it had potential.

“Or, we could reinvent ourselves.”

Mac’s eyes shone with the memory of a plan. A silly, stupid plan, but a plan all the same. It was better than nothing.

“Arizona?”  
Mac smiled.  
“Arizona.”

They stood up from their seats and interlocked their fingers, a nostalgic throwback to what they used to do in their younger years.  
Turning the neon sign off for what may be the last time, the duo walked out into the street, and shut the door on Paddy’s pub.


End file.
